Slashdot Mirror

Yes, it is a deliberate attempt to confuse people who already relate ALICE to the ALICEbot, and Alice and Alice and Alice and Alice and Alice and Alice and Alice

reading the official website's description of available weapons, I notice that "grenades can be fetched by dogs" ...

I bet the people at PETA will just love bashing this game...

Official Weapons Page

Sorry about that. Konqueror wasn't playing nice (at first) with their navigation stuff. There's plenty of shots available

MoH: AA is more realistic in nature than RtCW, and even has Steven Spielberg listed in the game's credits as it draws heavily from the movie "Saving Private Ryan."

I don't know how long I'd be able to keep playing a game that made me sit through five minutes of my character lying in blood and entrails yelling "MAMAAAAAAA!!!!" every time my health went to zero.

Personally, I'm a big fan of racing games, such as the Need For Speed series (I like the varied environment there, as opposed to a set track from, for instance, Formula 1 games). High Stakes was good, but that's a bit old now. And, Porsche Unleashed only has Porsches, of course.

Are there any new racing games that I should check out? And, before you suggest it, I'm not particularly interested in Motor City Online, as I prefer non-Internet play ;).

just ask Electronic Arts.

This is called IFF format. It was invented by Electronic Arts in 1985 and used by Amiga OS for audio files (AIFF). It was the first portable interchange format, predating XML by over a decade.

I've personally used IFF in years past to great advantage where XML was bulky or wasteful or didn't exist yet. That's one of the reasons I haven't gotten a stiffy over XML, because the problem was largely addressed prior, only it was missing standardized attributes retrieval and arbitrary length tag names. As a format for speedy reading, it's almost unbeatable (with a couple of logical conventions for data formats).

Emperor: Battle for Dune is nice also but obviously won't qualify as a Relic just yet ;o)

I never was a fan of the Ultima games, but this is of course my humble taste.

Something new? How about Sim Golf?

Yes, some mad scientist decided to combine the all-encompassing game creation powers of Sid Meier with those people who make the Sims to create an utterly dominating force which will rule the gaming market.

What happened to SimMars? Maxis released a trailer for the game over a year ago, and then redirected the web site to http://simsville.ea.com/, which is now defunct. Many members of the Mars Society were hoping to play the game, and hoping that others who played the game would become interested in supporting a real-life mission to send humans to Mars.

I am not sure if it is true 3D or just isometric, but eventually everyone will have their own personalized eHouse, as opposed to a webpage.

The Sims Online is basically just that, an massively multiplayer online world, where people can build their own houses, and live virtual alternate lives as criminals, playboys, doctors, etc...

You can bet The Sims Online will become the next killer app for the internet. Just as the other killer apps (chat rooms, email, instant messaging) appeal to a large audience, The Sims appealed/appeals to a large audience. Making the game massively multiplayer is obviously the next level to take the game to, and Will Wright is the man for the job.

Everquest was too geeky for the mainstream, and chat rooms are too boring... The Sims Online? Now thats going to make allot of money!

The game gives you a budget, from which you build
a basic city by laying out traffic and utility grids, then "zoning" with commercial, redidential and industrial districts. You use income from taxes, fees, etc, to expand the city. Very good for showing budgeting, also, pretty good intro to city design.

I'm glad to hear some of that group is still around. Austin has had a fairly good gaming industry. We have Steve Jackson Games, Digital Anvil, and Origin to name a few. However, Origin's layoff and apparent fall into a coma was quite a blow, especially falling on the heels of massive layoffs from companies like Dell, the shutdown of .bombs like Living and Garden, etc.

I really wish these guys luck. Austin's a great geek city and gaming, to me, plays a symbolic role in demonstrating that to the world. Not to mention the fact that it keeps my dream alive of quitting my day job and coding games for a living.

I have worked in the games industry for 10 years on and off, on platforms from Game Boy to PC and many consoles in between. For companies like EA, Relic, and some that shall remain nameless. Between projects in games, I've worked in "traditional" software for about half that time.

My summary (it varies from day to day) is this...

The games work is much harder, much more challenging, sometimes well-paid, sometimes not. And I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. The most brilliant programmers I've worked with are game programmers, bar none. (Not the most organized or best planners, though!) I hope this doesn't sound too idealistic, but... Games aren't made because they're necessary or because a client needs a feature set, or because a competitor is neglecting a niche in the market. Games are made for really noble reasons, IMHO -- so people can have fun, and interact, and be challenged. People play (and hopefully, buy) your creation. And they use it because they want to. That's rewarding. To me.

I have a degree in CS, which still puts me in the minority of games programmers. I have programmed, led, hired, and designed. (Though design is becoming less and less accessible to programmers.) I believe that on the planning, organization, and methodology front, some education and non-games experience is good for the games industry. But make no mistake: you're going to suffer a bit working in that industry. So it's all going to come down to single-mindedness and passion to make a game. If you don't have that, then don't waste your time -- you'll make more money and be happier elsewhere. Projects are getting longer and longer. Budgets are getting bigger and bigger. And of course, it's Big Business now, so occasionally corporate boneheadedness gets in the way. So do it because you want to. And have a backup plan for when you burn out. Then take some time off, and throw yourself back into the trenches. It's the Good Fight in software.

By the way, if Vancouver is in your range of acceptable places to live (and it should be!), then those two companies I named above are fantastic places to work.

Well it's obvious that people are against this for "regular" business, development and home software, but what about games? The expiration thing is pretty much a moot point for games, because people (for the most part) tend to move on to new things in a fews months or a year anyway. Do you think it'd be viable (and would you be willing to pay for) all games in the manner (not just online RPGs, like Everquest and UO.) ea.com is apparently launching a HBO like service for games, is this a good idea and do you think the industry will go this way in a few years.

I thought it was interesting that a huge company like Namco would be mixed in as one of the "influential developers", given it's actually a diverse behemoth instead of a "godfather" per se. Anyway, on their list of influential titles, they left off one of Namco's very best: an innovative little 3D tank game called Assault. Assault is just about the best adrenaline-pumping pure action arcade game I've ever played. Incredibly difficult, and by the time you get to the final level, if you aren't literally breaking a sweat from moving the controllers, you're just dead. If you ever get the chance to play an original, take it.

Rather than emulation efforts, I'd rather see people spending their time writing e-mails, filling out surveys (like this one for NBA Live!, for example), and filling out petitions (like this one) telling publishers that you want Linux games. "Putting your money where your mouth is", so to speak, is also a good way to urge publishers along: go buy some Loki products, for example.

Trust me, such things do get attention.

Ryan T. Sammartino

Second of all... EA doesn't own Lionhead or Black & White either! Just like with Sierra, EA is only doing North American Distribution. So stop worrying about it.

EA is one of several major software distributors in North America... Lots of companies use them for that as an alternative to going through Ingram Micro.

Funny bit --
Extensively quoted in the Dreamcast article about Sega getting out of the hardware business because of a failed home video game console and moving exclusively into the software business is none other than Trip Hawkins, (co?)founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO (both of which had rather similar logos ;-) ... who is the all-time-undisputed-king of "Overhyped Console Maker drops its Console and goes Software Only"! :-) (Any /. readers old enough to remember how CRAZY the early Wired magazine from the early '90s hyped this thing up know what I'm talking about... ;)

* Clive Barker's Undying. Finally a new horror game with a really good plot? (Like System Shock 2)

* Unreal Warfare. 200 times more polygons in levels and characters than UT had. Double the world size. T&L. Better AI. Better everything. *drool*

* Thief 3 and Deus Ex 2. Yees!! Warren Specter! With UnrealEd2 they get all the tools, graphics, AI etc for free and can spend all time on making a good plot and a believable worlds.

All use the Unreal engine, funnily enough. :-)

************************************************ ** *

They forgot American McGee's Alice! I am sorry, it might be a new game, but for anyone who has played it, you can agree with me..... It is one badass game. I have never seen so much creativity put into level details ever. Does anyone else feel the same?

Where did you hear that? Their site certainly doesn't mention anything about a cancel... Of course, it also mentions a Fall 2000 release.

I assume you're referring to American McGee's Alice and not some other project.

Anyways, there have already been several FPSes that included fairly advanced puzzle-solving -- Half-Life and, to a slightly greater extent HL:Opposing Force had quite a few puzzles to go with the gruesome slaughter. MDK2 was third-person, but managed to be a pretty good hybrid of puzzler, shooter and 3d platform game. Messiah was supposed to be a sort of shooter/adventure hybrid, but it turned out the biggest puzzle was getting it to run for more than a minute without crashing. And, of course, there's the "thinking man's shooter" games System Shock 1&2 and Deus Ex. They're no Grim Fandango, to be sure, but there's a lot more to FPSes these days than rocket launchers and blue keys.

--
perl -e '$_="06fde129ae54c1b4c8152374c00";
s/(.)/printf "%c",(10,32,65,67,69,72,

Actually, Microsoft didn't make 3D Pinball. They licensed it from another company. I think it was Maxis. (Maxis has since been bought by Eletronic Arts)

What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?

Ever consider that the "popular people" might actually *enjoy* their social circus?

Actually, the huge success of "The Sims" is proof that they do, since the purpose of that game is to be popular. Sims aren't happy when they're by themselves. Incidentally, check out this "family" for a good laugh. I expect the online game will be even more successful, in which the object is to be the most loved person in simland.

Oh come on. At least be intellectually honest. For someone who spends 4 hours a day listening to death metal, accusing the "popular people" of needing some social signpost to orient them is really the height of hyprocracy.

1. Hypocrisy.
2. I don't see how that follows, necessarily, though I don't believe that just because someone listens to pop music that they're sheep; I just think that they have bad taste. In any case, I think the sign that your music is corrupting your style is if they match; In other words, if all you listen to is britney spears, and all of your clothes come from some happy shiny nice place in the mall, you're a sheep. Likewise, if all you listen to is NIN and Lords of Acid, and all of your clothes come from the "all black, all the time" rack at Hot Topic, you might want to get sheared and start walking on your hind legs.

   Where would Clinton's social compass be without his anti-music to guide him?

   Some of us don't even have a social compass.

I wish Origin did the same for the Ultima and Ultima Underworld games that are now too old to be sold. Despite their age, I think Ultima 6 and 7, and UW were the best computer games ever (barring ``Betrayal at Krondor'', and, perhaps, older stuff like KQ1 and, naturally, Adventure).

I wrote to them to try to persuade them that it would be a Good Thing(tm), but they didn't even bother to reply.

BTW, when DeluxePaint will be ported to Linux? The local former Amiga users seem to really want that ported. =) I, too, have hard time 'cuz DeluxePaint 5 doesn't always run properly in UAE...

Good ol' DPaint is an excellent program for fine pixel-level image editing (e.g. when creating pixel-perfect icons, animated 2D game characters etc. with a restricted palette). It would be very nice to have one real old-skool paint program amongst all these dumb-ass scanned image manipulators. Creating images by cutting and pasting scanned photographs and applying some filters to them does not IMHO require much talent. Hand-painting them pixel by pixel with a mouse when you only have some 32 colors available does.

Deluxe Paint was originally created by Daniel Silva and published by Electronic Arts. There was also an MS-DOS version available, but it was not a 1:1 port (there were some functional differences and for some reason, the integrated animator was released as a separate application called "Deluxe Animator"). A real DPaint port is unlikely to ever happen unless someone can persuade EOA to release the source. Well, who knows - it might just be possible, as nowadays EÓA only develops games... Maybe somebody should ask them?

I end up having to boot into win95 to fly an F-16 or an AH-64.

So if you go to one of these sites and someone's griping about how much "OSI sucks," you'll know they're not talking about this OSI.

So did I use enough link references?

J.

So if you go to one of these sites and someone's griping about how much "OSI sucks," you'll know they're not talking about this OSI.

So did I use enough link references?

J.

When I was in middle school, I wore a Simpsons teeshirt to school that said "I'm bart simpson who the hell are you?" (or something to that effect). I was ofcourse sent to the principals office, he told me I had a few options: Change shirts, Go home, or allow him to cover the word up with a black marker. If you havn't guessed, the problem was the word "Hell", back then it was a big deal to say hell - in the massmedia sense. Socity blamed radio and televisions for the violence in schools.

Later in highschool this card game came out called magic. Lots of us played it then, and for about a year it was okay with everyone. However like all things something happened to someone who had a magic card somewhere on their person for some reason in the last few days - so obviously magic==problems in school. Sortly after whatever happened the game was banned. The game was just a step in the pathway to worshipping satan, in their eyes, I guess. Occultism was another nice area of distress, people wearing magic-stars and ankhs were "danger signs".

Around this time I think was when the first seeds agaisnt video games were planted. I clearly remember getting strange and concerned looks from various teachers the day I bought Ultima 8: Pagan .

The point of all this being that none of this is new, its just the same old crap happening again. The problem is its not just repeating itself, it seems recursive. What I mean by that is: each time something like this happens subculture gets pushed harder and harder.. and people snap. Its just numbers, of n people some % of n are going to snap.